Babel and Escha, Urbanalities

Overview

Description from eliterature.org

• "A mash-up of Dadaist technique and VJ stylings, this Flash movie is the product of an 'antagonist remix' by babel vs. escha. Seven scenes provide enigmatic observations on the nature of contemporary life, on seeing and being seen, understanding and miscommunication, destruction and creation. The texts in the piece are generated randomly as the piece runs, so the reader's experience of the piece is never exactly the same twice."

Description from 391.org

• "A cross between a short story, a poem, an animated comic and a musical..."; "babel and escha have been collaborating via 391.org and the 404 since 2004. Their 'versus' collaboration is different to an 'and' collaboration because it is a series of antagonistic remixes rather than a jointly conceived creation."

What is Dadaism?

• From theartstory.org: "Dada was the first conceptual art movement where the focus of the artists was not on crafting aesthetically pleasing objects but on making works that often upended bourgeois sensibilities and that generated difficult questions about society, the role of the artist, and the purpose of art."
• http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada-artworks.htm#pnt_4
• Fountain, Marcel Duchamp

Textual Elements/Digital Affordances

Use of music on every page, which matches the texture and timing of the piece; GIFS; video-game like feel on the second page; comic strip.

No interaction, until you've watched a page completely, then the viewer can rewatch or skip around.

• Chris Joseph, also known as babel, works with Kate Pullinger creating the Inanimate Alice series. His aesthetic for controlled linearity shows in this piece, as well. Though we have more room for interpretation, as we can view this piece several times over and see a varied piece.
• Each experience is slightly different, which allows us to discuss the text is ways that other varying digital texts have not allowed us to.

Spatial and temporal

• The music provides a consistent loop, while the words quickly flash across the screen.

Interpretation

"Nature of contemporary life"

• The clock page tell us we have no time, its time for rest, time to drink... In Western cultures, we strictly structure our time around the hours of the day, perhaps leading to a sense of "no time" as in not having enough time. The final page of this composition shows the same clock with a fluid motion inside, moving with the music. With our understanding that Urbanalities is babel vs. escha, we can think of this page as generalized Western vs. Eastern thoughts of time.

"On seeing and being seen"

• First-person-shooter page allows us the perspective of seeing. Each suggested person is seen and judged. However, there are multiple persons making target suggestions, which could be read as each of us not being immune to judgement of our everyday lives. Therefore, projecting Dadaist aims, babel or escha could be asserting that we are too hard on one another: some day, the target could be aimed at you.
• The coordinates page allows us this same sense of being seen. Each coordinate tells us a small instance of what is occurring in this space.

"Understanding and miscommunication" & "Destruction and creation"

• The sperm and egg page was intriguing. The authors are working with seeming binaries, but their composition allows the reader to question whether they are truly binaries or not. For instance, the male textual representation on this page are all reasons to leave a relationship: "mean", "boastful", "crazy", "headstrong", etc. The female textual representation concerns sexuality and the burden of miscommunication, i.e. the consequences of unsafe sex. However, both roles can be switched - women leave relationships for the same reasons, men have similar consequences of unsafe sex. Thus, mutual understanding can be reached when empathy is used.
• This section could also be an example of destruction and creation, with the reasons for leaving a relationship and safe sex practices seen as destructive to procreation, and the final animation of the page seen as literal creation.